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social aspect of mmos
parpin
Member UncommonPosts: 220
i made some of my good friends from around globe by playing mmos. a usa soldier stationed in japan and to this day one of my best friends and i am in contact with him via face book. an australian couple who even invited me to their country but i did not go because the trip cost(well i am just ordinary gamer you know). well i had to quite that game because i am back in europe now and because of the time difference and life complications i cant play with those guys anymore sadly, i have decided to try new mmos and make friends.
but after trying those games i found out, more and more so called mmos are being solo friendly and offering a gameplay which requires minimum interaction with people in the guild and out side of it. it feels it is all about loot, loot and grind, grind for high end stuff and make more in game currency like gold as much as you can. if you can solo it way better(people are in the way) or join zerg and no need to be social just hit boss get the loot and leave.
the games i tried were gw2 and eso i felt these two games require minimum interaction with others. but i have high hope for wild star ( i am not promoting this game. this can turn out to be bad or it might be good, we have to wait and see) it seems it offers old school MULTI player game where guild matters and playing together is what end game is all about, i am just hoping wild star is going to be a real mmo, but i suggest not to rush and buy it wait to see whether the game is actually good or not.
Comments
I'm not a "joiner" by nature, and I don't really care so much about meeting the people behind the screens. To tell you the truth, I get a better experience like that in the lobby of a FPS than in MMOs.
But what I like is the roleplay and the ability to create a part of that shared fiction. And I find that the lack of sociability gets in the way of that as well; too many people running around on quests fighting all the time to do anything else.
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I think people depend far to much on what a game offers as social.
I am a very social person in real life, also am extremely social in the more sandbox/virtual world type of MMORPG.
Themeparks while still plenty of social feature's I often solo most of it for a few months untill I feel the game is more matured aswell it's community as I don't expect great social experiance's within a few months of playing even if it's a MMORPG/sandbox/virtual world. These things always take time.
Now SWG was a different story it rewarded you by being social, not so much only in "loot rewards" but just in the overall experiance. At some point you needed another person for what ever reason but it felt more natural to do so instead of being forced.
There is very little of that .. unlike you consider drama "shared fiction". Most players i have met (MMO or not) have zero interests in talking about lore (including myself).
If you have down-time (which i hate), you will get lots of out of character real world talk, and drama .... most players are not in it for the virtual world .. they are in it for the game.
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The MMO market is very stale what do you expect?
I think people play alone because they want to and play with others because they want to.
Its not fun to force people into a group who otherwise would not want to talk to you.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
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While we have discussed our views and come to an understanding, of sorts, on each of our preferences and playstyles.. I feel like this is an unfair and unproven generalization.
Not every player in an MMO community is a dick out to create drama. Not every guild is full of clique drama. Actually, most guilds I have been a part of over the years have had little to no drama. I feel for you if your experience has been drastically different, as it seems to have helped shape your views on what an MMO should be and do. Not every player in the genre right now, if placed in a situation where they were asked to socialize with other players, would be a totally immature jerk. Rest assured, there are those players out there. And with the direction MMOs are heading, where there is no kind of accountability on a player or situations requiring cooperation, there are more and more players who devalue others. But, especially in the past, the majority of players I've met have been at least polite, if reserved (at least, at first).
Because of that names were well known, if someone achieved something, they were known across the server, it was really good.
The staff arranged a big get-together every year called mirstock. They'd have BBQs and entertainment. I was too young to go which I was gutted about, but it was awesome seeing the pictures of all of these players whose names I knew. You just don't get anything like it nowadays, there never seems to be a sense of community, which I really miss when it comes to MMO's.
Mmorpgs these days are solo games and the reason they are like this is because it's what the vast majority of players want. They want content that can be soloed instead of having to go through the hell of random PUG groups that barely converse anyway and which will only stay together for the duration of one quest. A vocal minority of players DON'T want games like this but the problem is with society at large, not the games themselves. All games include chatting and grouping facilities, but a LOT of people don't want to use these functions and blaming the game for this is missing the point.
I don't see any reason why I should exchange textspeak and acronyms with strangers when I can be voice-chatting with 3 or 4 real-life friends or family members as I play. I'm being social with people that matter to me, not with people that are just pixels running around on a screen that I have zero interest in.
This is the difference between games now and then. Back in the EQ days, it was highly unlikely that anyone had three-to-four real-life friends who played the game, much less family members. The Internet was not popular, and online games even less so. Being alone, people experienced the game like a book. Now in big social groups they approach them like an episode of Mystery Science Theater 2000. Things like challenge, down-time, and strategy are intolerable to these groups, and the developer is in danger of losing not one, but three or four players if the game is challenging. How you design a game for a group of people whose priorities are not in engrossing themselves, but in amusing themselves, is quite different. And you are right, the vast majority--in fact nearly everyone on Earth--is more interested in their real life than their in-game life. This is only compounded when their participation in the game coincides with their real life--that is, they are playing with people whom they know in real life.
I am with the OP in preferring a role-playing game to an e-sport or social whack-a-mole.
Precisely. Games are just a part of my life .. a part even of entertainment I enjoy. I am not interested in living in a game world. I am not interested in games that requires commitment, schedules, and long time requirement.
I don't think many virtual world supporters actually want to "live" in a game world, lol. That type of individual would need serious therapy and likely have similar issues with other aspects of their life.
Who says someone can't enjoy a small part of their day indulging in such a game? I've been playing these types of games for almost ten years and never felt some need to have a high level of commitment. Hell, I rarely play longer than two to three hours on a good day. These are just video games for god's sake; you don't have to treat them like a second job to derive fun from them.
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May be some can ... but we are talking about the mass audience here. If people want pick-up-and-go games with zero commitments, i don't see a reason why devs should not give it to them.
And 2-3 hours? What make that magical? May be people want even shorter play sessions.
I think the power of the machine is far under-estimated and I think the power of human interaction far over-estimated. To be frank.
Not only do I think its likely virtual worlds are better than most peoples real world I also do not think its a mental condition to think in such a way. I do think its a concern to not lose ones responsibilities in the real world but I think people over value reality and under value fantasy as a general rule.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
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I've made many long lasting friendships in these games that people keep bashing when this topic comes up so I really don't know what you are talking about. Maybe its me. Maybe its you.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
'if they keep throwing stones chances are your on the right path'
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
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MMOs still have social aspects. GW2 has elites which will bring people together - and that's in the open virtual world. it even has downscaling some older players don't just roll them 'for you.' It has tough dungeons too. Wildstar has 2+ person quests again in the open world..
Its not any different then the old days. I played EQ lots - and you know what you could solo fine in that game. You had to pick the right class and the right mobs but it could be done. So no there hasn't been some great change in MMOs.
oh Wow that is being very social. You know how that goes?
You ninja invite someone into your party or get ninja'd into a group.
you say hi wich occasionaly u get replied too. You kill thta big guy wich is standing in front of you (usually in 1 go cauz its really not that hard afterall)
and then if your lucky you get a Ktnx Bye, and that is if your lucky.
and then people fuck off again doing their own thing. Oh wow we are being so social right now.
its the equivalent of sitting in a subway and making eyecontact with someone for a second. Really social.....
That is why you can treat strangers in your group pretty much like NPCs.